HYDERABAD, April 16: The seven-hour power shutdown on Monday made the lives of the people miserable which also hit the water supply of the city as well as routine work in the offices.

According to a Hesco spokesman, the shutdown was announced on Saturday for four hours between 9am to 1pm which had to be extended by another 2-1/2 hours for installation of some equipment in Qasimabad Grid Station. This forced the authorities to extend the shutdown.

Power supply in different areas went off at 8.25am and was restored at 3pm in some areas, while it was restored by 4pm in other localities. This affected the supply of water by WASA in the city.

The new 30mgd filter plant of WASA didn't have supply since 6pm and power was not restored till the filing of this report.

“We used generators to supply water but filter plant is not getting power for the last one and half hour," said the Managing Director WASA, Mishraz Siddiqui.

He said the affect of this suspension would be visible after some time if electricity was not restored.

During the day, he said, power disruption affected the sewerage pumping stations and WASA had to switch over to alternate sources of power wherever available but mostly they used stand-by generators.

Same was the case in the Civil Hospital where routine investigations in laboratories were badly hit in the day as power supply remained suspended.

According to the Medical Superintendent, Dr Khalid Qureshi routine investigations were affected because machines needed three-phase power supply and generators could not withstand such load, he said adding X-rays and other pathological investigations too, were seriously affected but surgeries and operations were carried on normally, by and large.